The speech travelled with me around our network in 2017. This version was for Marlton Pike. 

How does one get to be a 50-year-old Christian? We always say a 50-year-old-Christian is our goal in our work of redemption– since if someone makes it that far, they are probably out of the woods. All week we have been thinking about Jesus going through the suffering of being in the wilderness as a thirty-something. But each decade has it’s own perils. We find ourselves in a new wilderness being tempted in surprising ways all along the way of Jesus.

What if you are a twentysomething? I loved watching the precious little story called Brooklyn. A twenty something Irish woman moves to New York and meets a twentysomething Italian man. Every scene is like being a twentysomething. The wonder and tragedy of new things. Discovering. Being wrong about yourself and others. Learning. Confused. Passionate. Brave. How does one end up at 30 holding hands with Jesus?

What if you are a 40-something?  I also loved watching The Revenant. It was a wonderful  parable. But I also liked being surprised by Leonardo DiCaprio who I never really liked beyond What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. But there he was in his early 40’s, showing courage, showing depth, showing some mature acting — like he looked at himself and realized there was more to life than being a movie star. He said a very fortysomething thing in an interview in Variety:

“I knew this was going to be somewhat of a silent performance; that’s part of what was exciting. But more than anything, I think I learned a lot about being an actor on this movie. It has a lot to do with trust. Trusting the people you’re working with, giving yourself over to a unique process, and trusting that if the people you’re working with are committed like Alejandro, you can focus on being in the moment and rely on your instincts and trust the journey.”

With such major interior things to face in our 40’s and all the temptation to just become your craft, how does one find Jesus and not just oneself in the silence?

That’s the question for tonight.  But I felt God was telling me that not only do I need to look to the long term, even while waiting for my life to end right now, I need to look out for others. Faith is an every day, long term journey. It is an ongoing relationship that develops like the seasons.

So when we look at each other tonight, I think we should try to develop an outlook that asks: where is this person going? How does this beloved person get to 50 or 60 or death with their faith intact? Whether they are the youngest child or a 40 something with a lot of responsibility — they are on the Way of Jesus, they may have just got on the road or just gotten back on the road. How do they get to the end? Or in our organic terms, how to they get to the water of faith, where they are swimming in an ocean of grace with confidence? How do they endure all the temptations and suffering and stay planted in the love of God?

Since I have already been a little kid and made it past fifty with my faith still growing, I want to tell you about how I got there. The telling is not just for nostalgia. This is more of my testimony about how I managed to have a lively faith when I hit fifty. Actually, I think I probably just got started when I hit fifty and that feels good. So I am going to give you one thing from each of my five first decades that I think was significantly helpful along the way of Jesus.

0-10 – blessed with affirmation.

So start at the beginning of my faith. I think I was unusually blessed as a child. By the time I was six or so, I think I had learned enough lessons about Jesus to sustain me my whole life. My parents dropped me off at the Baptist church to go to the 5-6 year olds class without ever making their own connection, but I did.

My family never taught me one thing about God, never mentioned Jesus at home at all. Their own spiritual life was taboo, another secret like so many they had. But one Christmas, my mother and father gave me a present that was not from Santa, but had their name on it. It was a nicer Bible, and more importantly, in the Bible was a bookmark, a gold-looking chain of the Ten Commandments — a bit like this one from E-Bay but much better in my memory. It was a treasure. I never used it as a bookmark. I hid it from my sister like it was gold. And I treasure that rare affirmation of my faith to this day.

That is one thing that will get you to fifty as a Christian: The child in you receives affirmation for their faith. We come to Jesus as a child whether we are young or not. If it did not get to you in kindergarten, you’ll have to go there somehow and be touched with the assurance that the little-child-you-are can fit with God. You belong and you are loved. So touch that child in you. Touch the child in each other. Tell them they can have faith in Jesus  and God is with them.

10-19  blessed with an identity

The next decade of my life was filled with facts, fears, fun and all the stuff adolescents get into. Some of you here are in the middle of that right now – we have ten to twenty year olds here, in this meeting. One of those people lives with me who I love very much. It is an exciting time of life. If you don’t know what you are doing, that is normal. Hang on to Jesus and he will get you through.

For me, personally, I had to learn the facts of faith and make a decision about them in the middle of some very poor examples of church. The Christians I knew did a lot of fighting. Their bad example often made me wonder what I was into. But I had met God as a child and that was hard to shake. You can imagine how hard it is for people without the affirmation I got as a child when they get next to adults who are not faithful – who fight, divorce, sin. Here they are trying to decide what identities to put on, how to make love, what jobs to do, whether they are worth anything, and their parents and other adults do the weirdest stuff.

Somehow, I not only got some intellectual facts about Jesus — I did some reading and listening, I also got some personal experience of praying and feeling like the Holy Spirit was with me. That was crucial. By the time I was escaping my little town and my dysfunctional family to go to college, I decided that the main fact about me was that I was a Christian. For me, entering my dorm hall and introducing myself to a whole new world was a chance to come out as a full-on Christian. I used the little note board on my door to put a card up with my theme verse: “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.”

I was going through that door Jesus opened. My inner world looked to me a bit like the picture, here. But I had latched on to a  great teenager verse. You can get an eighteen year old to die for the country, too. Somehow, Jesus became my commander. Help young people know the facts of faith and make a decision about them. And don’t despise that demanding, critical, clueless teen in yourself or others.

Taking on the identity of a Christian as a teen was a crucial launch pad for the rest of my life. By the time I was twenty, the next thirty years were already in motion. That is one of the reasons we need to be a church for the next generation. Our friends at Rutgers are making the decisions that will decide who they are at fifty. Will they be following Christ or following their passion, like Leonardo DiCaprio? Will they be following the economy like their schools have been training them to do? Will they be Americans first and Christians privately? Before they can clearly think about it, the road is already opening up before them. Is it the broad way that leads to destruction or the narrow way that leads to life?

The child needs some affirmation for their faith.

The teen needs to act on the facts and choose to identify with Jesus.

Among many things, the twentysomething needs to find a place to belong, especially if they are going to keep following Jesus.

20-29 blessed with community

In my twenties, I stumbled on to something that was surprisingly life saving: intentional community. Not only did I marry a great believer, who has been organizing me for good ever since, I ended up living in an Acts 2 community. It kind of happened naturally, as well as being inspired by Acts 2. A group of us spent a lot of time together because we all worked in a burgeoning youth ministry. We got tired of commuting to our relationships, we said, so we started moving in together.

Here is the first house we lived in. It still looks terrible. I planted that tree. Before long there was a statement of formation and twenty people in three houses, welcoming in Cambodian refugees and unwed mothers. Our focus came to be hunger. We decided to live simply so others could simply live. It worked great. And it made me face up to myself every day.

Being a part of the community made me a visibly serious person – mostly to myself. It made me disciplined for righteousness. I got habits of the heart solidified. I am still simplicity-minded. Still communal in nature. Still adept at welcoming in the stranger. I learned that all just by being together with people who were on the same track, praying and working together with Jesus.

There is no such thing as a solitary Christian. If you are going to make it to fifty and beyond, you will have to do it together with the others. A great spouse is good, but you need to be a part of the body and the body needs to be part of you.

30-39 Blessed with integrity

The twenties are great. People will try anything. Hopefully they try it with Jesus. Thirties, not so easy. I had young children. Plus I had some screws that had always been loose that finally started coming out altogether. In your thirties you develop psychologically and relationally, or you try to stay a twenty-something as long a possible. I always connect that difficult process to Joseph in Genesis who must have been about thirty when his earnest mentality and natural charisma propelled him into the management of Potiphar’s household. He is confronted with a big choice — “Should I have sex with Potiphar’s wife, who wants me, or not?” He decides not to do it, which ultimately lands him in prison. But his reasoning is basically, “That’s just not me. I am not going to surrender my righteousness for an orgasm, or anything else.” To get to fifty with your faith, it takes acting like that. Integrity.

The thirties have a lot of decisions like that. Who am I going to be? How will my family function? How do I make a living? What does all of this serve? All these requirements cause a lot of us some huge new understanding. I had some really foggy months psychologically, relationally, with my choices, in our marriage, in my thirties. But things started to come clear.

One thing for me is that I had to realize that not all my desires were going to be met. Also, my ideal future might not materialize. What’s more, not every direction I felt like going was possible. Even more, I’m not that great; I have problems to solve. I settled into: I am connected and I am responsible and that is good even when it does not feel good. Fortunately, I already had some faith built up. The hope God gave me really was like an anchor for my soul. If you are in your thirties, stay the course on the way of Jesus and don’t get drawn into bed with a lot of people who don’t follow God. Hang on to your integrity. And help someone else in the same turmoil.

40-49 blessed with something to do that is worthy of my best

The 40’s may be one of the most tempting ages of all. A lot of people veer off the way of Jesus then. Their childhood faith, if they had any, doesn’t satisfy. Their twentysomething convictions seem juvenile. Their thirtysomething development may seem unfinished or unsatisfying. They start bumping up against their limitations, for sure. They really need to know God. You may have gotten to forty and realized that a lot of what you have built so far has been in service of a substitute dream and you are just too proud to change or too lazy. So by the time you are fifty, nothing is there. This is very common scenario, so beware.

When I got into my forties, I had already taken a leap out of my past that totally revolutionized me. I really grew up a lot in my late thirties when I moved to PA and took the leadership of a struggling traditional church. Being that kind of pastor, in essentially a foreign land, created a huge learning curve. I soon realized that the move was just a first step and felt moved to try my best.

This is a big thing I learned in that decade about how to get to the end: I need to do the best I can with the best God had given me. I need to respond to what I have been given. I faced a temptation: I could pile all I had into succeeding at something or I could labor in obscurity and possible failure while following Jesus. That’s when Gwen and I decided to move to Philadelphia and see if there was a circle of hope here. There was.

The turmoil and challenge of the thirties, the good hard work of the forties is a great prep for the launch pad of the fifties. At least that is what I learned. I wish someone had encouraged me, since I mostly learned in the school of hard knocks. It is good to be fifty and faithful. It is kind of like the last couple of stations on the factory that is making RVs I used to work in. It started with a chassis and now we can drive the spiritual car. There will still be glitches to fix, but it will probably get us to the end.

Destiny

Our destiny is to swim in an ocean of grace, free and joyful, like some big spiritual whale singing songs to God that echo is the depths. We need to imagine ourselves getting there. I want to give you a moment to do that. Whether you are 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50 and beyond, imagine yourself where God is taking you — not so much the place, but the condition, the feelings, the stature, the faith. What is it like for you to be fifty or more and faithful to what Jesus has called you?

Just as our previous ages are always with us, so is our age to come, because the Holy Spirit is with us. So rest in the great love, that grace. Where are you going?

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